Cato: Defendants, Not Their Attorneys, Should Decide Whether to Admit Guilt

Criminal defense is personal business. A criminal defendant may never face a more momentous occasion than his trial, nor one where his decisions have greater personal consequence. For this reason, the Constitution not only mandates rights for the accused but also secures a defendant’s autonomy in the exercise of those rights: “The Sixth Amendment does not provide merely that a defense shall be made for the accused; it grants to the accused personally the right to make his defense.” Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 819 (1975).

Robert McCoy sought to exercise his autonomy on one of the most fundamental decisions a defendant can possibly make—whether to admit or deny his own guilt before a jury. On trial for his life, McCoy made an informed, intelligent, and timely decision to maintain his innocence and put the state to its burden. But that decision was not respected. Over McCoy’s express objection, the trial court permitted his attorney, Larry English, to tell the jury that McCoy was guilty of murder. With the court’s approval, English even purported to relieve the state of its burden to prove McCoy guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Following this brazen violation of McCoy’s autonomy, the jury returned a unanimous verdict for first degree murder and sentenced McCoy to death.

The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld McCoy’s conviction, and effectively treated his insistence on deciding for himself whether to admit or deny guilt as a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel. But that framing elides the fundamental interest at issue here. In a capital case with overwhelming evidence, it may be tactically advantageous to admit guilt, with the hope of avoiding the death penalty at the sentencing phase. But the issue is not whether such a strategy is reasonable; it is whether a mentally competent defendant, fully informed of his situation, may decide for himself whether to maintain innocence and demand the state prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/defendants-not-their-attorneys-should-decide-whether-admit-guilt